P: It’s kinda hard, a lot of times it comes up from a random idea that will start things up. There’s this point where everyone has this elevator pitch and someone has to land it. Like sure, having a Kubrow as a pet is a great idea but what exactly does it mean? I like that part. I like going from the elevator pitch to saying ‘here’s a concrete version of how it’ll work’.

Then there’s this discussion in between, going back and forth saying “I like this part, but I don’t like this part.’ Sorting it out, the implementation of a rough version. I don’t like the in-between that much because it’s a mess -laughs-, but I get back to liking it afterwards. Once you get the really rough strokes you get to see what it’s like and put it together; like Steve says ‘let’s juice it’. It works well there. Those are the two phases I enjoy the most of the development, going from the very little idea to the end when you tie it all up.

D: There are few things more satisifying than a successful redesign. It’s a great feeling to compare the ‘before’ and ‘after’ and see both the improvement in the presentation as well as the functional benefit to players. It’s a really great experience. Like, ‘Yes, this is a change that we should have done and we’re glad that we executed it this way.’

Artistically, the other thing that’s incredibly exciting that we’ve been doing recently has been coming up with a new look and visual identity for Warframe. It’s been a ton of fun to have everyone jam together, take this new vision for the UI and make it a reality.

D: Yeah, especially in our game where it’s so dynamic. We’re hugely mobile compared to a lot of other games in that we’re able to make these changes super fast and release them super fast. It’s a great strength that we’ve really been using a lot to our advantage.

D: Mag. I have a huge helmet fetish, and Mag’s helmet is just incredible. I wish it existed in real life so I could add it to my collection.

P: I’m a Vauban guy myself. Just Vortex and stand there destroying everything. -laughs-

P: There were many parts that weren’t shown there, and what we did show was very ‘working wires’. Now everything is much more polished. The ship looks better;, the loading screen is totally new, the ship that was shown has changed quite a bit. Originally the cabin was large and had all those seats, so all those seats are gone. That was a bit jarring, how at the end of a mission the doors open and you could see yourself against the ship; so once you were standing there after the mission you would say ‘well this looks bigger than the ship that picked me up.’

When you see the ship flying away at the end of the mission it’ll now match the ship that you’re standing in, in terms of dimensions. That has now come to a much better place.

D: Additionally a lot of the content we showed during the Devstream was placeholder that now has some really exciting visual targets for us to recreate in-game, which will help enhance the immersive UI quality that we’ve really been striving for.

In terms of the look and feel of the player ship, is this the first design you jumped right into?

P: At the beginning we had gone through several iterations, for example, each functionality like the arsenal and foundry was just a random console and they all looked the same. Then we talked about how they’re actually stations and each one has their own look, we also considered having them be entire rooms in your ship so each one docks into this floating base.

D: In terms of the UI itself we had to go through an immense quantity of iterations; not only to nail down the new style but because of the paradigm shift that comes with moving the interface from something that was flat and more or less independent of the world, to one that now exists harmoniously in the same 3D space as the character and the environment.

One of the biggest challenges we had to face was being able to interact with a screen while still having a character standing in front of it. We investigated a lot of different options but what got us the most excited, and what we ended up going with, was a system in which the camera moves depending on mouse/controller position. This enabled us to, in the most organic way possible, reveal areas of the display that were behind the character and allowed us to find the really satisfying balance between immersion and usability that we were looking for.

Will it take some time for existing players to get used to the changes, or do you feel most of these elements are easy to jump right into?

D: That was kind of the big mantra for this update. Making Warframe super accessible for new players but also not disrupting current players. Really finding that perfect balance so people who have been playing for a while won’t feel disoriented.

With that in mind a lot of the changes we’ve been making have been designed to be as low-impact as possible to veterans of the game, but also at the same time it will make things easier for new players to jump in and understand everything at once.

P: In a way it’s a huge change, but at the same time an experienced player might not notice it as much because a lot of the changes are splitting up functionality they’re already used to. A new player starting up the game right now won’t have the foundry or the ability to fuse or transmute mods, and as you do missions you’ll start to acquire those things.

It helps because instead of being presented with ten or twelve different functions you’re just presented with a couple. You understand those and then you get one new one, so at the time you get fusion you already know what mods are. You learn what fusion is and then you get transmute. It all builds on top of one another. As an experienced user everything will already be there. You’ll see some new things we’ve added to make things easier, but you won’t say ‘oh no, where’s my stuff?!’

Have you made any more progress on UI customization?

P: Not really. That’s on pause, understandably. What I showed on Devstream 23 was a tech test to make sure that we could actually do it, and that it would work with a controller, but it still requires a lot of work for every individual component in the HUD to be integrated into that system. We haven’t really spent any time on that yet.

Are there any parts of this UI update that you’re particularly proud of?

D: The new style we came up with and the transition to a diegetic system where the UI lives in the same space as the character. I think that’s a huge leap for us in terms of presentation quality and in terms of the immersion that we’re striving to reach. I’m really proud of the visual result we’ve come up with and the impact it will have moving forward.

P: When I joined the Warframe team we were eight people, and I’ve been here from the very beginning. To be perfectly honest I think this is the first time when I look at the UI art I actually feel like, yeah, this is part of Warframe. It feels more like what it should be.

What are some of the more intuitive changes you’ve had to make to the UI/HUD, things players may not have asked for but will really enjoy?

P: We are changing how the upgrade screen works. It’s like a subtle change that will make things much easier. Right now if you go to fuse there’s like four hundred mods and it’s hard to see which one you want to use or not. For new users they end up trying to fuse something and it’s like...why is it not letting me?

It might be because it’s the last copy you have or something like that, but how are you supposed to know? So in that case for example we’re doing a few things to lighten the amount of mods it shows you, more narrowed down to the ones that are relevant to the action you’re doing.

One of the things I really like is the loadouts. So let’s say you’re going to fight the Infested with Ember using an Ignis and some melee weapon that does a lot of AoE. The loadout will switch all your mods and your appearance and weapons. You’ll have an entry that you can name, something like ‘Rhino Infested’, and then you can have another that’s like ‘Loki Speedrun’ or whatever. It allows you to change them when you’re in the star chart so that you don’t have to be doing this loop all the time where you change your arsenal.

D: It’s a lot of subtle things that add up and really make a difference. Adding help and/or description text for operations like Fusing or Transmuting for example. Previously, the only way to know what those were and how they worked was to ask someone in chat, or make the trip to the Wiki page or Codex and read about it. In response to this, we've been working on integrating hints directly into the screens themselves in the most unobtrusive way possible. One simple line of text can make all the difference to someone who doesn't know what's going on.

Are there any challenges in UI design that you feel are unique to Warframe?

D: One of our main challenges when we’re designing the screens is saying ‘yeah this will work on PC but will it work on console?’ and vice versa. It can be incredibly difficult at times, given that they have completely different inputs and a vastly different set of constraints for each one, but we’re happy with the solutions we’ve come up with to make them both as consistent as possible between platforms.

P: We also look at the wide range of systems that run Warframe, and it’s kind of hard to design the UI keeping every system in mind. For a console you design at 1080p but at the same time we know a lot of PC players run on low end graphic cards, which is lower resolution, you’ve still got to be able to read everything. It requires a lot of scaling and pre-planning, which is kind of hard to achieve.

P: Part of it was a curiosity, since it’s a setting we have off by default. But also it’s knowing...well...One thing I’ve hated about the current UI is the way it shows being in a party. If I’m in a party and I go to my arsenal it does this sort of ‘peekaboo’ effect where I don’t know if you’re really there anymore. I really just want to see if you’re there, so I close the screen and all of a sudden everyone's gone and I never found out.

So now we reassigned the way it shows the squad so it will show some permanent display at all times for when you’re with people. Even though that’s not part of the question, that information is sort of extrapolated from the response. That there’s this need for being aware of who your team is and that they’re there with you.

D: It definitely confirmed what we had thought for a while, that an incredible amount of importance should be placed on the social aspects of the game and that having the presence of your teammates on the forefront will do a lot to enhance the players Warframe experience.

Any advice for future UI designers out there?

P: Oh, that’s a tough one. -laughs-

D: Hah! Be patient. Iterate a lot.

P: The one exercise that will flex your designing muscles is, grab any game you like for a console and try and transform that to PC. Turn it from PC to console and console back, try to really slash it up in your head and figure out how it will work. If you have an idea just close your eyes grab a controller and try and imagine yourself going through a particular feature; that is super important.

D: On the art side a great exercise is to gather some art or design pieces that really excite you, set yourself some constraints, and create a set of mock screens for an imaginary game using what you've collected as inspiration to create something unique.

It really gets you thinking about more than just the art, and gives you a great opportunity to showcase not only your design skills, but also your ability to think analytically in regards to functionality.